Procuring Consent

This Master Elf - a.k.a Hode - had managed to hold time back long enough - a mere ninety five seconds - to enable embedding himself into that early sequence of moments, just prior to the hideous calamity.

Interfering with time can be tricky. The Elvish can do this within their own world very easily, but the laws of the Physical world requires cooperation between all parties - which in and of itself takes more time again to manage also.

Only an adept can understand and convene with those involved in such a chaotic scene - its a little like unravelling a rug of knitted squares, and knitting them back up again, without having a fibre out of place when all is done.

The essential part for success is procuring consent. The young mother and her child needed to want to come back into the World for this to work at all. If had they been content to stay in the spiritual worlds, Puck could not have made the difference as he did.

Equally, if Eve herself had wanted the accident to play out as it had happened, he would have difficulty changing her role as well.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

The Adjacent World

Puck by all appearances on this day looked like a man - a very tall man, with a mess of long curly hair. He was dressed in Western gear - having just come from the country in outback Australia. He liked to pop over there once or twice a week to visit family - the stadium had just been a little detour on his way through.

Most of the time Puck resided in the adjacent world - that subtle and wonderful etheric place called Faerie.

Nothing in Faerie ever goes rancid, the air is always sweet and clean, and there is a fresh supply of water and moss where ever you go. Being so much more pleasant, it was the obvious choice as the primary place for Puck to prefer to live in, and drink the water from.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Time & Consequences

Puck positioned himself into the front seat beside Eve, quickly throwing Needles abruptly into the back.

“There you go Einstein”, he said rather sarcastically, having viewed the akashic take on how and what had just taken place: with Needles distracting the driver, causing the car to crash, spin and collide.

“You really should be more careful” he then said, addressing Eve, not realizing that she could see and hear him.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Gold Mercedes

Best beat the traffic before the crowds disassemble. Puck teleported himself into the car park, right beside his gold Mercedes. Once inside he chugged down a half opened packet of crisps before venturing out onto the open road. Oh! life was grand!

Next he was rummaging into the side door for his Etheric springwater (he never drank tap water as it could turn his hair green) when he came to a slowing in the traffic, as a police officer was waving the line of cars into a side street instead.

Puck swung over before turning. He wanted to see what the delay was, and if he could help. His powers of healing were as good as the best, and besides which, his curiosity responded quickest to the fates of disarray.

And that was how Puck met Eve; on a day that should have been the worst day of her life, but for him. He wandered into a scene of metal and blood, and simply, quite brilliantly, turned back time.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Man! You have it good!

Puck looked over the sea of souls before him - a vast stadium of sports supporters were before him - divided in name and colour only. He enjoyed visiting such events - he found that the energetic resonance was exhilarating. If only they could cheer like this for something of substance, of real importance, he thought momentarily.

It was essentially the paradox of Humanity: the gift to be able to get things completely wrong, to miss the point, to choose unwisely, to falsely judge, to assume the worst, to see through the glass darkly, to misinterpret and misunderstand … the divine right to be an ignoble ass - or, to become a god - Man! You have it good!

But he knew better. His elven ears were twitching with the erupting noise. The scoreboard clicked - and the animated mass explosively enlivened one more time.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Selfhood

There was magic in the air, everywhere: an intoxicating normalcy, where the consciousness of Man could pivot one minute from an inner knowing, into a selflessness that drew him into the crowd, and then back again.

The problem of selflessness can be when the soul of the individual fails to recognize the light that dwells in his brother, because he then no longer perceives the glory of his own. There needs to be a measure of self, a large portion of self, to be able recognize and respect the selfhood in others.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

It Wasn't Me!

“It can’t be me.
I would not have done this.
It can’t be me.
I would not have done this.”

Eve kept repeating this over, and over, as the shock loosened her thinking terribly.

The dwarf had left her recollection altogether, and their momentary conversation was far from her reach also. This is not unusual, for many of us have visitations from ethereal beings and completely forget it having happened hours, or even minutes later. We also have interjections and suggestions that interrupt our inner dialogue, frequently from an ethereal other - sometimes of goodwill, and sometimes with animus.

All Eve could remember, scanning back, reviewing what she knew, was looking down at her phone, away from the road.

“Oh God, it was me” she said just before collapsing.”

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

No longer Calf to the Bull

“Rough work is all I require Son. If it has burs and knicks, all the better I say. You worry too much lad. Crude and strong, I’ll be back on the return. If you need the raw supplies, I will arrange a drop.”

It was clear that the slaver would not take ‘no’ for an answer, and it occurred to Jonathon that he himself might end up shackled to his work, or onsold, or both. He had known five minutes of freedom, only to have some surrogate father step in and want to tell him what to do to fill his days.

“I will no longer be calf to the bull”, he said to himself.

And the voice of his inner man called to him to there and then, to step out of his childhood and become grown with a certainty of himself, according to himself.

Jon closed his eyes, and reflected on what it was to be him.

He could decide - he could choose - he could stay or he could go … and just by knowing this was his to ponder, he felt the freedom of his living spirit within, rising above, aloft the heavenly powers, now to endure all else.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Slave Trader

William Allan

“Smithy!” an oily voice called loudly.

Jon knew this voice, and it made him sick to his stomach just to hear it. It was Husain - a thug from the port - employed as ship’s whipper on cargo boats, invested in ‘crowd control’.

“I am in need of your craft” - he said, for no apparent reason with irony - then laughed a murky laugh - “we need cages - big cages … and manacles - with keys of course … and spikes big spikes.”

He went on to roll out his shopping list of his metallic requirements.

“My Da is dead, and he cannot work no more.”

“Well, you can do it Son. Good practise now you are the chief owner, I say.”

“I cannot. I know not how. I cannot.” Jon said this firmly that the oaf might hear him plainly.

Jon looked at the ground. In saying this he was lying to this hideous man. Yet even his father had refused work from the slave traders - and Jon felt exactly the same. The smell of this man was menacingly close by.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Relief

She had no recollection of what had just passed … of the car that had been forced into the tree, as she had idled into the wrong lane, absorbed in her moment, losing concentration and focus as she had done. It is the blight of the intuitive, to be less present in the present, distracted with their persistent sense of other-worldliness.

A small crowd had formed, with quite a few broadcasting the event on their phones.

Relief surged through her like a lightning bolt. There was an ecstasy of energy, as Eve discovered that her body was unharmed, and she uncurled from the tangle of metal, as a whole and healthy woman as before. It was a miracle.

And then, then, the scene became complete: and she saw for the first time the other half of this story: there was a man sitting in the gutter crying, and a wagon up against a tree. It was on fire.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Impact Shock

With the shock of the impact, Eve’s clairvoyance kicked in, and she could see Angels all around her. In that moment she thought that it was herself that had died.

Needles had escaped back into the seat behind, and was looking on the floor of the sedan for the diamond Eve had dropped with the impact.

A man in a blue uniform with an upturned moustache rattled her side door frantically until it opened, and leant across, shining a light into her eyes, then fitting a brace around her neck, he spoke something - but she did not hear what it was that he had said. Eve was taken by his golden aura, and the angelic beings that hovered at his shoulders in a flurry.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Into the Light

“What do we do now?” Patricia asked her mum, who sympathetically was holding her hand.

“Let me take you home. We have a lot to catch up on. You can rest there, and Molly can settle. In a few days, you will feel like new.”

Patricia felt the peace of these words, and her mother’s presence calmed her. She did not feel stressed or particularly broken - and that in itself was soothing too. She nodded, turning her mind’s eye away from the world she had just left, gathered up her little one, and followed her mother slowly into the light.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

All my Fault

Toby sat hunched on the curb-side with his head in between his legs. It was as though the weight of the news was literally crushing him. He did not go to his wife’s car - or what was left of it. He was not moving. He could not move.

Even though Patricia was ‘in spirit’ and no longer alive, she could hear and smell and see what was going on, as though it was close by her. She could taste the petrol on the road, and heard a woman in the background crying, she could see the other vehicle jammed up against the hedgerow with some small figure sitting in the back.

“It's all my fault” the woman was screaming, “I was looking into my phone; I just did not see it coming.”

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

World's Collide

Molly looked around. Her birth mother, in spirit form, had been holding her all this time while her grandmother, who was also in spirit, was talking with her.

“It was a terrible accident my dear, but you are alright now, I promise", she said for what felt like the fiftieth time.

“Cars can be like that” she continued explaining - “one minute you were in the world, and the next you can be taken out of it.”

The toddler pushed her head into her mother’s shoulder, wrapped her arm around her neck and clung tight. She started crying again.

“It’s the shock of it all” her grandmother said to her daughter, who was staring into a worldly window where she could see her husband at the scene of the crash. His own car had just pulled up behind the police van, and the ambulance had turned off its lights, resting there, waiting for the Coroner to appear.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Starting Over

“My life is over” she wailed.

“No, no my dear, it’s really not. You have to just pick yourself up and start again.”

Her life as she knew it was over.

Starting again meant the whole reincarnation and being a baby again - a long protracted time of feeding and crawling, and walking, and, with God knows what type of parents.

“I am so sorry that it came to this”, the voice soothingly said.

“It's just that … that I thought I would have more time.”

“We all think that, whether ninety - or two."

“But I was only two, and my mother loved me very much.”

“Yes, I know dear, she did. And she is with you right now.”

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series